Theodosia, wife of Leo V - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Family

Theodosia was the daughter of Arsaber

Arsaber

Arsaber , was a Byzantine noble who attempted an unsuccessful usurpation of the Byzantine imperial throne in 808.Arsaber was a noble of Armenian origin, holding the rank of patrikios, and had served as quaestor. In February 808, a group of secular and ecclesiastic officials, who were dissatisfied...

, a Byzantine patrician. The name and rank of her father were recorded by both Genesius

Genesius

Genesius may refer to:*Any of several Saints Genesius*Joseph Genesius, tenth-century Byzantine historian*Genesius Theatre in Reading, Pennsylvania...

and Theophanes Continuatus

Theophanes Continuatus

Theophanes Continuatus or Scriptores post Theophanem is the Latin name commonly applied to a collection of historical writings preserved in the 11th-century Vat. gr. 167 manuscript. Its name derives from its role as the continuation, covering the years 813–961, of the chronicle of Theophanes the...

, the continuation to the chronicle of Theophanes the Confessor

Theophanes the Confessor

Saint Theophanes Confessor was a member of the Byzantine aristocracy, who became a monk and chronicler. He is venerated on March 12 in the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox Church .-Biography:Theophanes was born in Constantinople of wealthy and noble iconodule parents: Isaac,...

. The name of her mother is unknown.
Arsaber led a failed revolt against Nikephoros I

Nikephoros I

Nikephoros I or Nicephorus I, Logothetes or Genikos was Byzantine emperor from 802 to 811, when he was killed in the Battle of Pliska....

in 808. According to George Finlay: "In the year 808, however, a conspiracy was really formed to place Arsaber a patrician, who
held the office of questor, or minister of legislation, on the throne. Though Arsaber was of an Armenian family, many persons of rank were leagued with him ; yet Nicephorys only
confiscated his estates, and compelled him to embrace the monastic life.

The name of her father indicates Armenian

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

origins. However the names of his ancestors are not known. Genealogical theories suggest Kamsarakan

Kamsarakan

Kamsarakan was an Armenian noble family that was an offshoot of the Karen-Pahlav Clan, one of the seven great houses of Parthia of Persian Arsacid origin.Most of their lands were acquired by the Bagratuni during the last quarter of the eight century....

ancestry.

Marriage

Theodosia married Leo V the Armenian

Leo V the Armenian

Leo V the Armenian was emperor of the Byzantine Empire from 813 to 820. A senior general, he forced his predecessor, Michael I Rangabe, to abdicate and assumed the throne. He ended the decade-long war with the Bulgars, and initiated the second period of Byzantine Iconoclasm...

. Leo was a strategos

Strategos

Strategos, plural strategoi, is used in Greek to mean "general". In the Hellenistic and Byzantine Empires the term was also used to describe a military governor...

under Nikephoros I

Nikephoros I

Nikephoros I or Nicephorus I, Logothetes or Genikos was Byzantine emperor from 802 to 811, when he was killed in the Battle of Pliska....

. His support for the emperor against the revolt of Bardanes Tourkos

Bardanes Tourkos

Bardanes, nicknamed Tourkos, "the Turk" , was a Byzantine general of Armenian origin who launched an unsuccessful rebellion against Emperor Nikephoros I in 803. Although a major supporter of Byzantine empress Irene of Athens , soon after her overthrow he was appointed by Nikephoros as...

was decisive for the victory of the former. Leo managed to rise to the throne upon the abdication of Michael I Rangabe

Michael I Rangabe

Michael I Rangabes was Byzantine Emperor from 811 to 813.Michael was the son of the patrician Theophylaktos Rangabes, the admiral of the Aegean fleet...

in 813.

Theodosia is the only wife of Leo mentioned by primary sources. However an interpretation of the text of Theophanes Continuatus has Leo marrying a daughter of Bardanes Tourkos. An interpretation which would make Leo a brother-in-law of Thekla

Thekla, wife of Michael II

Thekla was the first Empress consort of Michael II of the Byzantine Empire.- Family :According to Theophanes the Confessor, Thekla was the daughter of an unnamed strategos of the Anatolic Theme, where Michael served. On this account, her father has been identified with the general and later rebel...

, first wife of Michael II

Michael II

Michael II , surnamed the Amorian or the Stammerer , reigned as Byzantine emperor from December 820 to his death on 2 October 829, and the first ruler of the Phrygian or Amorian dynasty....

. Warren Treadgold for example uses this theory in The Byzantine Revival 780-842 (1988).

Genesius records that Prokopia

Prokopia

Prokopia was the Empress consort of Michael I Rangabe of the Byzantine Empire.-Family:She was a daughter of Nikephoros I. The name of her mother is not known. Her only known sibling is Staurakios.-Marriage:...

, wife of Michael I, referred to her successor Empress as "Barca". Treatgold has suggested this was the actual name of a first wife of Leo. Which would mean Theodosia married Leo once he was already emperor. However the word is also the Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

word for "boat

Boat

A boat is a watercraft of any size designed to float or plane, to provide passage across water. Usually this water will be inland or in protected coastal areas. However, boats such as the whaleboat were designed to be operated from a ship in an offshore environment. In naval terms, a boat is a...

". Which might mean it was only a derisive nickname for Theodosia.

Whatever her status as wife was, Theodosia was the Empress when Leo V was assassinated on Christmas

Christmas

Christmas or Christmas Day is an annual holiday generally celebrated on December 25 by billions of people around the world. It is a Christian feast that commemorates the birth of Jesus Christ, liturgically closing the Advent season and initiating the season of Christmastide, which lasts twelve days...

, 820. Michael II rose to the throne and exiled Theodosia and the sons of Leo V to the island of Proti

Kinaliada

Kınalıada is an island in the Sea of Marmara; it is the closest of the Princes' Islands to Istanbul, Turkey, about south. Administratively, it is a neighbourhood in the Adalar district of Istanbul....

. Joannes Zonaras

Joannes Zonaras

Ioannes Zonaras was a Byzantine chronicler and theologian, who lived at Constantinople.Under Emperor Alexios I Komnenos he held the offices of head justice and private secretary to the emperor, but after Alexios' death, he retired to the monastery of St Glykeria, where he spent the rest of his...

records that they were not forced to take monastic vows. Instead they were allowed to inherit part of the personal property of Leo V and the associated revenue. They were also able to have their own attendants. Theodore the Studite

Theodore the Studite

Theodore the Studite was a Byzantine Greek monk and abbot of the Stoudios monastery in Constantinople. He played a major role in the revivals both of Byzantine monasticism and of classical literary genres in Byzantium...

sent a letter to the deposed Empress sometime between 821 and his own death in 826.

Children

All known children of Leo V are traditionally attributed to Theodosia as well. Genesius records four sons:

Symbatios
Constantine (son of Leo V)
Symbatios , variously also Sabbatios or Sambates in some sources, was the eldest son of the Byzantine emperor Leo V the Armenian . Soon after the coronation of his father, he was crowned co-emperor and renamed Constantine...

(Συμβάτιος), renamed Constantine, co-emperor from 814 to 820. Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father.
Basil. Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father. Still alive in 847, recorded to have supported the election of Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople.
Gregory. Castrated and exiled following the assassination of his father. Still alive in 847, recorded to have supported the election of Patriarch Ignatius of Constantinople.
Theodosios (died in 820). Died soon after his castration.

The existence of a daughter has been debated by historians and genealogists. The tentative name "Anna" has been suggested.

Possible descendants

Nicholas Adontz

Nicholas Adontz was a prominent Armenian historian, specialist of Byzantine and Armenian studies, and philologist. Adontz was the author of the Armenia in the Period of Justinian, a highly influential work and landmark study on the social and political structures of early Medieval Armenia.-Early...

in his book The age and origins of the emperor Basil I (1933) expressed a theory that Leo V and Theodosia were ancestors of Basil I

Basil I

Basil I, called the Macedonian was a Byzantine emperor of probable Armenian descent who reigned from 867 to 886. Born a simple peasant in the Byzantine theme of Macedonia, he rose in the imperial court, and usurped the imperial throne from Emperor Michael III...

. The theory was partly based on the account of his ancestry given by Constantine VII

Constantine VII

Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos or Porphyrogenitus, "the Purple-born" was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 913 to 959...

, a grandson of Basil I. Also the accounts given by Theophanes Continuatus.

Basil I, according to this accounts, was a son of peasants. His mother is named by Constantine VII as "Pankalo". The name of his father was not recorded. The names Symbatios and Constantine have been suggestes. Both were names used by the eldest sons of Basil. With eldest sons of Byzantines typically named after their grandfathers.

The paternal grandfather of Basil is named as Maiactes. The paternal grandmother was not named but was identified as a daughter of "Leo", a citizen of Constantinople

Constantinople

Constantinople was the capital of the Roman, Eastern Roman, Byzantine, Latin, and Ottoman Empires. Throughout most of the Middle Ages, Constantinople was Europe's largest and wealthiest city.-Names:...

. Adontz identified this Leo as Leo V. Which would make Leo V and Theodosia great-grandparents of Basil I.

Adontz also suggested Constantine VII had made a mistake in the generations sepepating Maiactes and Basil. Suggesting Basil was a great-grandson of Maiactes and not old enough to have seen the wars with Krum of Bulgaria

Krum of Bulgaria

Krum the Horrible was Khan of Bulgaria, from after 796, but before 803, to 814 AD. During his reign the Bulgarian territory doubled in size, spreading from the middle Danube to the Dnieper and from Odrin to the Tatra Mountains. His able and energetic rule brought law and order to Bulgaria and...

. Making Leo V and Theodosia actually fourth-generation ancestors of Basil.

The theory has been accepted by several genealogists, including Christian Settipani

Christian Settipani

Christian Settipani is the Technical Director of an IT company in Paris and a genealogist and historian.He has a Master of Advanced Studies degree from the Paris-Sorbonne University and is currently preparing his doctoral thesis, while he often gives lectures to students undergraduates at the...

in his search for descent from antiquity

Descent from antiquity

Descent from Antiquity is the project of establishing a well-researched, generation-by-generation descent of living persons from people living in antiquity. It is an ultimate challenge in prosopography and genealogy....

. The name "Anna" has been suggested for the daughter of Leo V and Theodosia, because it was given to daughters of Basil I

Basil I

, Leo VI the Wise

Leo VI the Wise

Leo VI, surnamed the Wise or the Philosopher , was Byzantine emperor from 886 to 912. The second ruler of the Macedonian dynasty , he was very well-read, leading to his surname...

, Constantine VII

Constantine VII

Constantine VII Porphyrogennetos or Porphyrogenitus, "the Purple-born" was the fourth Emperor of the Macedonian dynasty of the Byzantine Empire, reigning from 913 to 959...

and Romanos II

Romanos II

Romanos II was a Byzantine emperor. He succeeded his father Constantine VII in 959 at the age of twenty-one, and died suddenly in 963.-Life:...

. Almost every emperor that would claim descent from this woman.
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Sources

Nicholas Adontz
Nicholas Adontz
Nicholas Adontz was a prominent Armenian historian, specialist of Byzantine and Armenian studies, and philologist. Adontz was the author of the Armenia in the Period of Justinian, a highly influential work and landmark study on the social and political structures of early Medieval Armenia.-Early...

, The age and origins of the emperor Basil I (1933) .
Warren Treadgold, The Byzantine Revival 780-842 (1988).

External links

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